Ukraine refutes reports of troubles with recently received Javelin ATGMs

The report by some Russian news agencies about the alleged troubles with recently received Javelin anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) does not correspond to reality, the Ukrainian officials said on 6 July.

The representatives from the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and Ministry of Defence of Ukraine have strongly refuted the news being circulated by an of some media and social networking about fake report.

The fake news report, which was published at social networking and some Russian news sites, alleged that US-supplied Javelin ATGMs have some technical troubles and Ukrainian missile developers reported about that to the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

Dmytro Tymchuk, a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament and expert on military affairs said about the Russian footprint in history with a fake report.

“The Kremlin continues to form an anti-Ukrainian agenda … Now the next step is American-Ukrainian military-technical cooperation,” – said Dmytro Tymchuk. “Yesterday, Russian propagandists through social networks began to disperse the fake … This letter severely criticized the technical condition and characteristics of the US-supplied Javelin ATGMs to Ukraine,” – noted expert.

The US government approved the sale of the Javelin anti-tank missiles in March at an estimated cost of roughly $47 million and they arrived in Ukraine in late April. The defence aid package envisaged a shipment of 210 Javelin missiles and 37 launch units, two of which would be spares.

Footage published on YouTube by Oleksandr Turchynov, the chairman of the National Security and Defense Council, shows a launching first a Ukrainian Stugna anti-tank missile, and then two Javelins at target armored vehicles at a distance of approximately 1 kilometer across open ground.